


please sit down and listen, i can only say this once

by amorremanet



Series: angles all asunder [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death In Dream, Cultural References, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s03e06 Motel California, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, Mythology References, POV First Person, POV Stiles Stilinski, Poetry, Requited Love, Romantic Friendship, Sexual Fantasy, Stiles Stilinski Is Bad At Feelings, Suicide Attempt, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:17:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I dreamed I had to learn to live without you, if you can call what I did living / by any definition of the term. My lungs still worked, my heart still beat, my neurons / fired and on a pure molecular level, I think I was completely fine, or at least no doctor/ worth their salt would’ve diagnosed me because technically, I wasn’t sick. / ….And I never helped you and I never could because I didn’t really / understand it and even if I had maybe everything’s just wrong out here and love is not enough.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	please sit down and listen, i can only say this once

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted (in part) to tumblr [here](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/64825651008/please-sit-down-and-listen-i-can-only-say-this).

On the ride back from the cross-country meet that never  
happened, I kept sniffing you, looking for the scent of gasoline  
even though I checked you over thoroughly the night before and  
combed every pore for traces of that gunk because maybe I can’t  
smell everything knife’s edge acutely like you can, but I also can’t  
catch you smelling like that ever again because my heart will stop  
and I don’t think it could restart, I don’t think I can come back from  
that. On the freeway, I don’t remember where, you caught me and  
you asked what I was doing and I told you nothing and you smiled,  
you looked almost like you used to before this summer and before last  
semester and before you even got attacked out in the woods. You  
smiled and my whole chest flushed and so badly, I wanted to believe  
that it was true, that you were fine and that sunlight leaked out of your  
perfect mouth because you had the sun inside you or you might as well  
have, because it was just the wolfsbane and you weren’t talking with  
your own voice last night and we can put it all behind us just like it  
never happened because it wasn’t you, it wasn’t _you_ , you didn’t want to die,  
or maybe you did, or thought you did, but it _wasn’t really you_ , you didn’t  
and you wouldn’t, and if you hurt that much, then you would tell me and  
you would let me help, but you didn’t let me help because there isn’t  
anything to help with because you’re fine, you are okay, you have to be.

But I knew better then and I know better now because I know you,  
I would know your face with my eyes closed just from tracing my  
fingertips along the angles of your cheeks, I would know your voice from  
a mile off even past the buzz of traffic and other people talking and the  
tumult of those lives that I don’t care about. I know when you’re getting  
sick again, I know it’s not a constant thing for you but comes and goes in cycles  
and every time I think you’re over it for real, I catch you reading all the labels,  
pushing food around your plate and picking like I can’t see you doing it,  
squirming away from me when I try to touch your stomach—do you even know  
you do that? Because you do it. Every single time, that’s how I know you’re getting  
sick again, as though you ever really stopped (you didn’t, by the way, or at least  
not that I’ve noticed and I notice everything you do and then some).

I hid your crumpled college-ruled notebook pages in my backpack.  
I know you didn’t want for me to find them but I found them anyway  
while you were in the bathroom I was supposed to be packing up my stuff  
because sleeping in the bus seemed like a better idea than taking our chances  
with that fucked up little Hell motel. You were in the bathroom, taking your  
seventh shower because you could still smell the gasoline even though I couldn’t,  
and I went to throw out a gum wrapper, and I found them waiting there with your  
half-illegible chicken-scratch scrawled out in some mess that didn’t bother to respect  
the lines on the page just traversed up and down like maybe you weren’t even looking  
while you wrote it out, only bled on the page. You said in there that you wanted me to  
understand. You said it wasn’t my fault and you didn’t want to die dishonest—that’s all  
fine but there’s something here _you_ need to understand; I only hope that I can say it.

Since that night, I’ve wondered what to do about the issue sitting here  
between us like someone invited it around for dinner, like anybody actually said  
they’d like it if it came to visit. I’ve tried to bring it up with you but then you smile  
and it strains your face with Herculean efforts and it doesn’t really glimmer in your  
eyes and something about it seems so off, it makes me want to puke my guts up  
worse than I did that time you gave me mono, and the worry scratches at my neck  
and pricks along the goosebumps on my arms and I know I shouldn’t trust the mask  
you’re wearing because you’d tell me you were fine while you’re bleeding out with  
your guts held in by some tissue paper (don’t even tell me that you wouldn’t because  
you’ve done this to me more than once already), and I shouldn’t trust the way that it  
distorts your face into a scream, _The Persistence of Memory_ writ large in tanned brown  
skin, your cupids-bow lips and perfect teeth, and the scars your dimples dig into your  
face like they think that I don’t know you’re full of shit right now. Because I can  
remember when you meant your smiles and I remember when they lit up the room  
and now everything about them looks so wrong and I need to scream for you to cut  
it out and stop the lying and tell the truth about your mental health for once before  
something like that night happens to us again, but my nerves flare up and I dig my  
nails deep into my palm and my throat burns with all the things that I don’t say but  
I just want so badly to believe you wouldn’t lie to me, and I want so badly for you to  
be okay and I want that thing because I know you’re not and I don’t know what to do  
about it because I don’t know what I’d do without you so listen up and well, okay?

I’m remembering my dreams more often lately and it drives me up a fucking  
wall, but not so much because I’d like a good night’s sleep for once, it’s more  
because most of them have had you in them. More appropriately, most of them have  
had the lack of you. I dreamed you told me how you meant the things you said that  
night, how it really was you talking and how you spoke in your own voice and how the  
obstinate desire dogs at you, day in, day out, all tireless and unrelenting, how more than  
any other thing, you wish that you could die. “But it’s like he said in _Charlie Bartlett_ ,” you  
told me with a laugh like this was any kind of funny. “I can’t kill myself, not really. I have  
too many responsibilities.” I dreamed I asked you what you meant by that and then you  
laughed again, this breathless little huffing sound, and you said that it was obvious. You  
said that no one else will do the things you do and anyone who wants to can’t keep up  
because they don’t have your powers, that your new housemate needs a place to stay and  
someone to keep him anchored when he flips his shit, that someone needs to keep our  
dear yours truly from fucking over everything when he charges in half-cocked and hell-  
bent on killing everyone, that although you try, you can’t save anyone, you’re Sisyphus  
in your own right and then again, you’re Atlas too, and if you ever stop the things you  
do, more lives will end and hearts will break and another set of parents will have to  
live forever thinking that their teenage child ran away and still might come back home  
again, though you and I both know she’s buried in the woods beneath a tangled ring  
of wolfsbane just in case somebody digs her up. I dreamed you smiled as you tried to  
joke this off, brushed my shoulders to smooth out the wrinkles in my shirt, and you  
expected me to snicker with you when you talked about stealing a certain bullet from  
a certain hunter, one of the magic ones that could actually ever put you down, like after  
everything you’ve said, this was too outlandish to take seriously but I still did and do.

I dreamed I broke into their penthouse, climbed up the fire escape and in  
through her bedroom window like you might’ve done were you in my place and  
you had any reason to believe that I could do myself in at any minute now on any  
given day. I dreamed I rifled through their unlocked armory while thinking to  
myself that given how she’s played around before, it didn’t make sense for her dad  
to leave everything unguarded so she could get into all the arrowheads and sidearms  
and do God only knows with all of them. I searched through boxes upon boxes  
upon boxes and I thought about that time we saved his life, about you digging through  
the freaking Walmart of guns just to find one bullet, and for a minute there, I really  
thought that maybe we would be okay, that maybe I’d gotten there in time and that  
maybe I could still talk to them, make them lock things up a little better, make it any  
kind of harder for you to take the thing you wanted. But then I dreamed about the  
empty space inside one box, one vacant spot where a magic bullet was supposed to be,  
and I knew that you’d beaten me to it, that even if I broke all the speed limits, ran  
every red light between her place and yours, I probably couldn’t save you now. I tried  
to think and tried to plan and tried to hope that everything still hadn’t broken yet but  
my mind went white, my stomach dropped, my hands would not stop fucking shaking,  
and a cold sweat drenched my face and neck as I felt my mouth go Death Valley dry.

I dreamed I heard the shot ring out. I was fumbling through the window, heading  
back down to my busted Jeep, trying to make it back to you in time, and even though I  
can’t hear things the way that you can, even though you were halfway across town,  
I heard it echo like a firecracker in a deep dark cave. Trembling with the shockwaves, I  
stared down out your ex-girlfriend’s window and I dreamed I saw the blood splatter on  
the wall, I dreamed I heard you hit the floor, I dreamed that I was with them at the kitchen  
table as his ears pricked up, his eyes went wide, they both paled and stared at each other  
and called out your name as though you could still hear them. I dreamed I couldn’t stop  
you, that I waited too long and didn’t say a thing and let you kill yourself thinking still that  
I only ever kissed you in the first place because you pretended to be her and that when I  
jerked you off in secret, it all meant nothing because we didn’t talk about it after and hey,  
anyway, masturbation doesn’t really count. I dreamed you died without really knowing how I  
felt about you and even though I scrubbed them raw, my hands stayed slicked up with your blood.

I dreamed I had to learn to live without you, if you can call what I did living  
by any definition of the term. My lungs still worked, my heart still beat, my neurons  
fired and on a pure molecular level, I think I was completely fine, or at least no doctor  
worth their salt would’ve diagnosed me because technically, I wasn’t sick. All the angiograms  
and all the CAT scans wouldn’t tell me why I felt phantom fingers tracing up my cheeks  
and arms at night or why my chest ached every time I caught a whiff of pomegranates like  
your body wash and every time I wandered past the elementary school and saw the playground  
where we once fought each other over Batman and every time the full moon rose white above  
the treetops. I stopped watching _The Little Mermaid_ and _Mulan_ entirely because I cried my eyes  
out every single time, thinking about how you cried over them because unlike King Triton and  
unlike Fa Zhou, your dad would never come around. I cried until I hiccuped and my eyes  
burned dry but still kept leaking and the snot leaked into my mouth all thick and heavy, and  
then I wanted it to stop but then I cried some more because it was one thing to have your  
parent up and die but quite another to know they were alive somewhere but didn’t give a  
shit about you anymore. And I never helped you and I never could because I didn’t really  
understand it and even if I had maybe everything’s just wrong out here and love is not enough.

And after I collapsed while pumping gas, they did all kinds of tests on me to find out why  
but my cholesterol was perfect and my heart still beat just fine and the pain inside my chest  
made no fucking sense from a medical perspective so they called in the local shrink and even  
though I wasn’t sick, I threw up on his polished shoes, which sadly didn’t help the differential  
diagnosis in the least but they’re writing an article about me and I think you’d be amused by that.

I dreamed that I did everything you asked of me, even though I didn’t want to  
because every morning waking up to a world without you in it left my head reeling and  
my hands stayed red and slicked up with your blood and maybe no one noticed that but  
they looked at me different anyway because for all I knew, I bore the Mark of Cain or  
something and they probably knew from looking at me that no matter what you think  
about it, there was so much more I could’ve done. And I wanted to just join you because  
living without you wasn’t really living, it was constant chest pain and a world of ghosts and  
some emptiness within me that nothing ever filled, but you told me to be happy so I tried  
my best at that. I dreamed I went to college, I dreamed I got a job, I dreamed I fell in love  
and kissed her the way I think you would’ve kissed her, respectfully and hungrily but  
undemanding with one hand cupped around her jaw. But just like with you, my love was not  
enough for her and her love wasn’t really what I wanted either and I hung on tight to her  
because she had these big brown eyes like untilled earth and inexplicably, I just felt drawn to  
her. When she broke it off, I moved on and let her be, because that’s what I know you would’ve  
said to do and maybe I’ve never been all that good at being the version of myself you think  
that I could be if I just tried harder, but you were rotting in the ground and my heart skipped  
beats because I never gave you my best efforts when they might’ve made a difference. And you  
told me to please be happy, so I fell in love again, once more, and then another time on  
top of that, and when the third fourth fifth and the sixteenth times weren’t the charm, I just  
kept throwing myself headlong into these ridiculous entanglements and going through the  
motions like I really gave a damn outside of doing what you wanted because you asked me to  
and what kind of selfish asshole doesn’t honor his best friend brother’s deathbed wish.

And when the fucking twenty-seventh try blew up in my face with hurt feelings and a  
flushed engagement ring, it finally hit me, what I’d been doing all along: there was Tim,  
who worked with animals the way you used to; there was Dave, who had brown eyes and  
a slightly crooked jaw; Miranda used your same shampoo and I really thought I was in love  
with her but when CVS stopped carrying her brand, her laugh sounded like nails digging at  
my eardrums and I noticed she was petty and vindictive and too much like me for me to like  
her (but I still fucked her one last time, just to see if the familiar smell was really gone); there  
was Julian, who was a werewolf and who liked it when I duct taped his wrists and threw things  
at his nuts but I never hurt him quite enough so he left me for his Alpha; there were Carlos  
and Santiago, a set of twins I dated one after the other, and they didn’t look like you or  
talk like you, they liked watching football and talking shit and they didn’t know any of the  
words to _Evita_ or _Into the Woods_ , but their grandparents came from Zacatecas too and in the  
dream, I thought that maybe this would be enough; I didn’t love Isaac and he didn’t love me  
but we both loved you and you were gone so we mauled each other, almost literally, and we  
burned hot for a little while but we must’ve been a grease fire because two seconds of reality  
left us wondering why we bothered in the first place. My lovers all were ghosts of you but we  
only worked out until I remembered that they weren’t you and that they never could be and  
that nothing takes the place of you, that I’d dishonored your memory by even trying this, by  
groping so hard at shadows that I couldn’t hold and waiting for the least offensive one, the one  
who best convinced me you were still alive. I died alone and then woke up, fade to black,  
roll credits to Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score, and I went to school like it was no big  
deal, because it wasn’t, but I didn’t really breathe quite right until I saw you roll up on  
your fucking bike, until I saw you fake a smile and heard you ask me about last night’s reading.

I’m still afraid you really died at the motel. I’m afraid I didn’t save you.  
I’m afraid that these weren’t really dreams, just diversions that my mind  
came up with, maybe flashes of reality, because I’m living in the dream right now  
when I’m thinking that you’re still alive, and I’m terrified that I’ll wake up  
and that I’ll be in some life I can’t remember for the life of me and I’ll grab  
and try to find you but you won’t be there, you’ll just be gone, and I’ll be left here  
with empty arms, an empty bed, and a mind that’s full, a soul that’s heavy, with  
all the things I should’ve told you when it could’ve made a difference for you.

And I know that I can’t fix you, and I know that I can’t make it better on my own.  
And I know that life is not some Zooey Deschanel romantic comedy where the suicidal  
brown-eyed werewolf hates himself and hates his life and hates the constant pain his  
good soul puts him through because he feels everybody else’s feelings for them but then  
he finally puts two and two together, and he figures out his best friend loves him more  
than anyone else in the entire world and his best friend drags him on some spontaneous  
cross-country road trip where they have fun until they’re arguing and in each other’s  
faces so close that they can taste each other’s breaths and aching for each other, they kiss  
without the pretense for the first time and fumble on the cum-stained motel comforter  
and they don’t have lube so they use lotion because they wanted to but they weren’t  
planning on ripping off each other’s clothes, falling together in a tangled mess of limbs  
and long pent up desire, fucking each other like they never told each other that they’d  
dreamt of doing for who even knows how long, and the best friend gives the werewolf’s  
life new meaning and puts his pieces back together and magically cures severe depression  
with his magic fucking cock. And I know that life doesn’t have a soundtrack by The Shins  
or by Marina Diamandis, there’s no big damn kiss then fade to black, roll credits, everyone  
applauds and the actor playing you would like to thank the Academy and also Jesus, his mom,  
his fans, his partner and President Obama for finally letting them get married, and I bet he  
deserves that golden statuette because he probably did a bang-up job but his jawline’s wrong  
and he doesn’t really talk like you and he’s probably Puerto Rican or Colombian, not Mexican,  
because Hollywood thinks that anyone who checks “Hispanic” on the census box can be  
exchanged with anyone else who does the same, and maybe his performance doesn’t suck but  
all I can think when I sit through it is about the little things that he gets wrong and you’re still  
probably dead in this scenario and that’s why your actor isn’t good enough and never will be.

Do you get where I’m going with this? I bet you don’t but it’s not your fault  
because you’re tired and I’m rambling and I probably couldn’t find the point again  
if there were a flashing neon sign to point me to it and I went looking on the clearest,  
brightest day that you could ever want. But the point is that I love you too, without  
any expectations where this fixes everything because I know that I will not complete  
you and I know that I can’t save you from yourself but I really don’t know how to live  
without you and I never want to have to figure that thing out. I don’t want to find your  
body and I don’t want to see you buried and I don’t want to give your fucking eulogy.  
If you’re really gonna do this, then you fucking take me with you, and before you line  
up to jump off of that ledge, please let me try to help you. Stop talking about my feelings  
for you when you don’t really know them and stop saying I’d be better off without you  
because that isn’t true and never has been. We’ll talk to your mom, talk to your boss, we’ll  
find a therapist who knows the truth about werewolves and whatever else is out there  
and we’ll work through it like we always do, together, because I’m not just gonna let you die.

Before that night, the worst one of my life was spent inside a hospital,  
sitting at my mother’s bedside while the cancer tap-danced across her  
insides until her blood was killing her. The chemo wasn’t working, the  
drugs were hopeless and they made her sick, sicker than she already was, I  
mean, her lungs were even worse off than yours used to be, she couldn’t even  
breathe without the weird machines she was hooked up to and she hadn’t moved  
for hours. Without the steady rhythmic pulsing of the EKG, I would’ve thought  
that she’d already died. And my dad was supposed to be there with me, but he  
got called away for work, and out of nowhere, the pulsing fell into a monotone,  
her heart just stopped. A nurse ran in and called a code and a doctor and more  
nurses fumbled through the process of resuscitating her. Someone shooed me  
out into the hallway and I watched on through the ICU’s window-wall, my heart  
raced faster and I couldn’t breathe because we’d been through this before and  
she’d come back but somehow, I just knew she wouldn’t make it this time. And I  
was right. She didn’t make it. They called a time of death and left me sitting by  
myself outside her room and when my dad showed up, my mouth was dry and  
my tongue was heavy. I hadn’t cried yet; I still thought that I was dreaming, and  
I didn’t cry until my dad called your mom and took me over to your house for  
the night because he couldn’t handle all the paperwork while he also handled me.  
And when I showed up, you hugged me, then ran upstairs to bring down the Batman  
sleeping bag you never wanted but had anyway because it had been on the clearance  
rack and tolerated having because me loving Batman made him less offensive to you.

I didn’t cry until we were alone in the backyard because you squeezed my  
shoulder and reality ran me over like a mack truck. And that was the worst night  
of my entire life, the night I thought no night could ever, _ever_ , top—until the first  
night when I thought I’d really lose you, until that night at the motel and the stench  
of gasoline and road flares. And I know you probably don’t believe me—that’s okay,  
I can’t say that I don’t blame you. I’ve given you every reason not to trust me on this  
one, not least of which were all the times I called you Lydia and how I used to talk  
about my five-year plan to make her love me. But I’m not joking with you and I wouldn’t,  
not about something like this, and I’m going to kiss you now, as myself and yourself,  
not platonically but with intentions that I would’ve shown you sooner, if I hadn’t thought  
that you’d never really want me back. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna kiss you in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…


End file.
